[R] The lib.loc argument to library().

Rolf Turner r.turner at auckland.ac.nz
Tue Mar 18 22:41:18 CET 2014



I am currently having, uh, difficulties, with the latest version of 
lme4, which I did not have with an elderly version that I was using 
previously.  To check things out I installed the elderly version in a 
directory called "AltRlib", in my home directory.

I kept the latest version (1.1-5) in a directory called "Rlib" in my 
home directory.

I have R_LIBS set equal to "/home/rolf/Rlib" in my environment, so that 
"Rlib" gets searched automatically.

If I start R in my home directory and issue the call

	library(lme4,lib.loc="/home/rolf/AltRlib")

then I get the elderly version as required.

If I start R in a subdirectory, say "/home/Rolf/Foo" and issue
the *same command*, I get the 1.1-5 version, *NOT* as required.

After some head-scratching I moved the .RData file in "Foo" to 
Save.RData and re-started R.  ***Then*** I got the version of lme4 that 
I wanted.

So I removed all traces of results produced by the 1.1-5 version of lme4 
from Save.RData (saving them elsewhere for safekeeping), moved 
Save.RData back to .RData, re-started R, issued the library command, and 
got the unwanted 1.1-5 version!!!

Can anyone explain WTF is going on?  What is hanging around in .RData 
that causes library() to ignore the "lib.loc" argument?  How can I keep 
library() from ignoring the "lib.loc" argument?

Thanks.

cheers,

Rolf Turner



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